Ravenswood+Hospital

Rosalla Marie Rockhill,a 19-year-old Sunday school secretary, died September 29, 1915 at Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago from an abortion. An unidentified midwife was blamed in Marie's death.

Ravenswood. named for the Ravenswood neighborhood in which it was located, was a for-profit hopital founded by a physician or group of physicians. It was not a seedy, fly-by-night abortuary, but a legitimate hospital.

Ravenswood Hospital faced a serious scandal in 1998 when staff refused to go outside to attend to Christopher Sercye, a 15-year-old gunshot victim who had been dumped outside the emergency room. Police pleaded with hospital employees to at least provide them with a gurney, and finally one police officer commandeered a wheelchair to bring the youth inside the emergency room. Christopher died of his injuries within the hour.

The staff defended their action on the grounds that hospital policy forbade them to leave the building while on duty. The hospital later changed the policy to allow staff to leave the building in order to render aid to those in the immediate vicinity of the hospital.

The hospital closed in 2002 and is scheduled for demolition in 2013.